Garh Panchakot, Purulia

In August 2008 Monisha, Mampu and I went to Garh Panchakot in Purulia in our Esteem. Partha (Dr Partha Sen) also went with his wife and son in his Accent. The trip was very pleasant for all six of us. We stayed at the WBFDC resort. The resort is fantastic in terms of facilities and service. Here is a short account of the road journey. If someone benefits from this it will be my pleasure. View of Panchet hill from the main road that goes to Raghunathpur We had crossed the Dankuni toll plaza at 7.45 am and Asansol Morh came at around 11 am (distance of around 185 km), including a half an hour break near Shaktigarh and about ten minutes wasted at Panagarh due to jam. This little elephant had somehow got into the car & we loved her From the Asansol exit (that is, the point where you see the sign board on your left hand side saying “Welcome to Asansol Municipality”) the toll plaza on GQ is exactly 9 km. Exactly 7.5 km ahead of the toll plaza (Rs 50 for car) take the left turn entry into Sitarampur. This is where you leave GQ (basically 16.5 km from Asansol exit). This turn is called Chowringhee and this point is very non-descript. You will miss this unless you are very careful and watch out for it. Drive on straight for another 4 km to hit a T junction. Turn left here. You are now in Niyamatpur. After proceeding for about half a kilometer there is a traffic police point where there is a road going right. You should take this right turn. The straight road goes into the city of Asansol. (Some people try to save the Rs 50 toll and go through the city of Asansol to reach Niyamatpur. I think paying Rs 50 to avoid the confusion of Asansol city is worth it.) This was our official driver. Pic by co-driver It seemed this part of Niyamatpur is under a perpetual traffic jam. On a bad day, clearing this half km can take more than half an hour. The lone policeman looked like he was fighting a losing battle against the plethora of minibuses, trucks, motorcycles, cycles and rickshaws. Somehow we made it through this chaos. After all I negotiate the Tolly tram depot and Karunamoyee jams every evening! After turning right from Niyamatpur your next big town is Sanctoria which comes after 7 km from Niyamatpur Morh. Dishergarh Ghat comes right after Sanctoria. Here you cross the river to enter Purulia district. Exactly 14 km or so from Niyamatpur Morh comes Sharbari Morh where you turn right towards a small village called Puwa Para. The straight road goes to Raghunathpur (another important town of Purulia). From Sharbari Morh to Puwapara is about 8 km on reasonably bad road! If you drive carefully you won’t hit the road with your oil sump. Take the final left turn towards GP Kot resort from Puwa Para. From Puwa Para Morh to the resort it is a 1.5 km road through the horrendous village road. If you go straight you reach Panchet dam in another 1.5 km from PP Morh. I hope the above paragraph isn’t too complicated. The road from Niyamatpur to Sharbari is fairly decent. You might find trucks carrying slushy iron ore on this stretch. Keep a safe distance from them, as they spill out the red slush on the road and often on unsuspecting pedestrians near the railway crossings. On this road watch very carefully for the Sharbari Morh. Otherwise you might miss it (as we did). We finally reached GP Kot at around 1 pm. I drive really slow, as I enjoy the drive more when I have time to look around. There were a few bad stretches, especially around Puwa Para but nothing much. Won't scrape the bottom of a 170 mm GC vehicle like the Esteem. The drive through Puwapara In terms of things to see around GP Kot – apart from the brilliant greenery, you have the Panchet dam which was awesome, in terms of the sheer force of the water that was gushing out through the gates. However, I wonder if that would quite be the case during winter or summer lean months. The Panchet dam Damodar - once the terror of South Bengal You can also consider going to this ruin on the other face of the hill. A distance of around 12 km from the resort. You basically circumambulate the hill. Go in the direction opposite to Puwa Para with the hill on your left hand side It is a fairly simple narrow forest road upto Gobagh (8km from resort) where you meet the Asansol-Raghunathpur road. From Gobagh turn left and drive for another 1.5 km on the state highway. Turn left towards the hill again here and drive for 2.5 km on this road towards the hill. The road just ends here. I hope you can locate this left exit from the main road. If you come to a single rail line on the main road you should know you over shot and go back. Needless to say I learnt this the hard way!! A ruined temple in the ruined fort Apparently there was a king who lived here with his 17 queens. He was attacked by the Portuguese and fled leaving his queens to commit suicide in a well in the palace. The fort was subsequently abandoned. The ruins are really ruins and there is no ASI protection or any other such government effort to preserve anything there. The place only has a few shepherds and their goats and cows. Apparently there is also a perennial waterfall somewhere up in the hill. We walked for about 45 minutes up the mountain trail with a shepherd trying to reach the fall. Since we were not carrying any water we abandoned this quest and came down very thirsty. The shepherd is totally clueless about time and distance and we couldn’t understand from his words if it was ten more minutes or an hour away. The trekkers of GP Kot The view of the district from high up on the hill is very nice. It’s all green all around. The town of Raghunathpur is another place you might want to go to if you want to buy some Tasser silk. There is a place called Tanti Para inside Raghunathpur where they have quite a few silk cooperative shops. Whether the prices are reasonable, I have no clue. We went there in Partha's car. The lane was terribly narrow and we had a very tough time turning the car around while coming back. Mampu had a small injury on her finger when the door got shut on it. Those who are interested for the other mundane details – I went in my Esteem and my friend went in his Accent. None of us kept any FE record. We quite enjoyed the trip. One other word of caution. Please book your accommodation in advance. Don’t just land up there. First of all the resort staff there are not authorized to take in any guest, even if rooms are empty. Second, the resort is virtually full all the time. Third and perhaps most importantly – there is nothing else in that locality, except a small lodge in Panchet and a few shoddy lodges in Raghunathpur. I wouldn’t go all the way from Kolkata to spend my time in those lodges.